We examine the consequences of asking many questions within a single online review on both users’ likelihood of completing and publishing a review and on the resulting distribution of ratings. A dominant design choice on many online review platforms, especially software and employer review sites, is to require reviewers to answer numerous questions in a single review. The rationale behind this strategy is to maximize the informational richness of each submitted datapoint. However, using a multimethod approach and proprietary secondary data that uniquely document abandoned and unpublished reviews, we show that this design substantially increases review abandonment. Importantly, this effect is especially pronounced among users intending to submit negative reviews, thereby exacerbating the already well-documented positivity bias in online ratings. We evaluate and provide insight into several explanations for this asymmetry, including greater effort required to articulate negative experiences and differences in motivation between reviewers with positive versus negative experiences. Finally, we suggest that platforms mitigate this bias by offering short-format review questionnaires alongside existing long-form review designs.
Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.
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